Modern farming practices strive to increase yields of agricultural fields. Technological advances in the area of planting implements or planters allow for better agronomic characteristics at the time of planting, such as providing more accurate seed depth, improved uniformity of seed depth across the planter, and improved accuracy of in-row seed spacing. However, a single field can have performance inconsistencies between different areas of the field. That is because a field can have a wide variety of soil types and management zones, such as irrigated and non-irrigated zones in different areas. To address this issue, seed companies have developed multiple varieties of each of their seed product types, with the different varieties offering improved performance characteristics for different types of soil and management practices.
In this regard, efforts have been made to plant multiple varieties of a particular seed product type in different areas of fields with different soil types or management zones. For example, planters have been developed that include separate bulk fill hoppers for different seed varieties and that require the reservoir for each seed meter be completely cleaned out or planted out before a different seed variety can be delivered to the seed meters. However, it is often quite difficult to determine when a given seed meter has been completely emptied of seeds to allow a new seed type to be delivered to the meter. Alternatively, planters have been developed that allow for planting of two different seed varieties within each row by including two separate and distinct seed meters at every row unit. Unfortunately, the inclusion of two separate and distinct seed meters at each row unit significantly increases the cost and complexity of the associated planter.
Accordingly, an improved seed meter that allows for more efficient and accurate switching between seed varieties or types when performing a planting operation would be welcomed in the technology.